Crusoes and Other Castaways in Modern French Literature: Solitary Adventures - Hardcover

Joseph Acquisto

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1611494060 ISBN 13: 9781611494068

Publisher: University of Delaware Press, 2012

Synopsis

Crusoes and Other Castaways in Modern French Literature: Solitary Adventures by Joseph Acquisto examines the many ways in which the castaway, particularly in the form of engagement with Robinson Crusoe, has been reinterpreted and appropriated in nineteenth through twenty-first century French literature. The book is not merely a literary history of the robinsonnade in France; rather, Acquisto demonstrates how what he calls the genre of “solitary adventure” becomes a vehicle for exploration of much larger questions about the reception of texts, modes of reading, and the relationship between popular and serious literary traditions. The heart of Crusoes and Other Castaways in Modern French Literature examines a crucial moment in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when the history of cultural perspectives on reading and solitude intersect, catalyzing a reconsideration of Defoe’s tale. Acquisto’s philosophically inflected readings of works by writers from Rousseau to Balzac, Verne to Gide, Valéry to Tournier enhance intertextual and cultural approaches to the castaway myth and broaden our appreciation of the dynamic relation it has to modern French literature writ large.

About this title

About the Author:

Joseph Acquisto, PhD is an associate professor at the University of Vermont, specializing in nineteenth and twentieth century French literature.

Review:

In the introduction to his innovative, intertextual study of the French castaway narrative, Acquisto (French literature, Univ. of Vermont) discusses the Crusoe story and its cousins from a French perspective, which deemphasizes a Protestant, imperial reading and the proto-colonial aspects of Crusoe's relationship with Friday. As Acquisto argues, the French tradition succeeds in turning the solitary adventure of the castaway into a heightened, attentive introspection, thereby transforming popular novels into serious works of art, and—most interestingly—narratives aimed at women and children into narratives intended for men. Beginning with Rousseau, the author traces the solitary adventure throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in both poetry and prose. Jules Verne, Paul Valéry, André Gide, and Michel Tournier all receive extended, worthwhile attention. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. (CHOICE)

Acquisto argues convincingly that in successive French rewritings from the nineteenth century to the present day the practical and essentially pragmatic concerns of Defoe’s hero are gradually infused with an exploration of the mental terrain of the protagonist. The castaway story is interiorized as the space of the remote island is metamorphosed into the space of the mind: experience becomes imaginative, activity becomes contemplation, and the voyage is transformed into the exploratory adventure of reading. (French Studies)

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Delaware Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1611494060
• ISBN 13: 9781611494068
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 282